Introduction
Should I use Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, or Edubuntu? Ubuntu Netbook Remix? Ubuntu Server Edition? What’s the difference?
10.04? 9.10? 9.04? 8.04? What is all this?
Desktop CD, Alternate CD, or Server CD?
What’s the difference between the Ubuntu CD and DVD?

Introduction
Before some people can even begin using Ubuntu, they want to sort out which version to use. This article is towards clearing the air around the subject.

If reading this page confuses you, however, just go with Ubuntu, the latest version (10.04 right now), the Desktop CD. You don’t have to worry about these other options unless you’re really curious.

Should I use Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, or Edubuntu? Ubuntu Netbook Remix? Ubuntu Server Edition? What’s the difference?
Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Edubuntu are all the same Linux distro using the same base, the same software repositories, and the same release cycle. They just have different artwork, different user interfaces (in most cases), and different default programs installed.

Ubuntu uses a user interface (or desktop environment) called Gnome. Gnome is focused on simplicity and usability. Ubuntu includes a bunch of Gnome-native applications such as Rhythmbox (music player), Evolution (email client and calendar), and Gedit (text editor). You can find the full list of software packages in ubuntu-desktop here.

Kubuntu uses the K Desktop Environment (also known as KDE). KDE is focused on including a lot of point-and-click configuration options immediately available to end users. Kubuntu includes a bunch of KDE-native applications such as AmaroK (music player), K3B (CD burning), and Konqueror (web browser). You can find the full list of software packages in kubuntu-desktop here.

Xubuntu uses the Xfce desktop environment, which is a lighter one than Gnome or KDE. In terms of its design principles, it has a bit of a balance—presenting in some ways more point-and-click configuration options than Gnome but also retaining some of the simplicity of Gnome. Its main appeal is its speed, though, and it’s ideal for systems with 128 to 256 MB of RAM. Both Ubuntu and Kubuntu can run on 256 MB of RAM, but they’re more ideal for 512 MB of RAM or more. Xfce includes Thunar (file manager), Thunderbird (email client), and Mousepad (text editor). You can find a full list of software packages in xubuntu-desktop here.

Edubuntu uses the Gnome desktop environment but has a different set of default applications from Ubuntu. Its focus is on educational tools. It includes GPaint (an easy to use paint program), Atomix (a puzzle game for building molecules out of isolated atoms), and Xaos (a real-time interactive fractal zoomer). You can find a full list of software packages in edubuntu-desktop here.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix uses the Gnome desktop environment but puts a simplified layer on top of it that is designed for the small screens most netbooks have. Some people prefer this layout. Others don’t. If you prefer the regular Ubuntu, it will run just fine on any netbook.

Ubuntu Server Edition is a command-line interface that is designed for people running Linux servers. It is outside the scope of these tutorials.

Mixing and matching *buntus is possible and often encouraged by the community. If you choose Ubuntu, you are not stuck with Ubuntu. If you choose Kubuntu, you are not stuck with Kubuntu. You can use Gnome-native applications in KDE and vice versa. You can use Gnome- and KDE-native applications in Xfce. You can install education-related programs in any desktop environment. You can install kubuntu-desktop on top of Ubuntu and choose which one you want to log into at the login screen. All four versions of Ubuntu (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Edubuntu) share the same software repositories and available applications. You are not locked into using one version just because it is the first version you installed. From now on, I’ll be referring to all or any of the above versions as simply Ubuntu.
10.04? 9.10? 9.04? 8.04? What is all this?
The numbering scheme for releases of Ubuntu sometimes confuses people. It is the year of release followed by the month of release. That’s all. You’ll also sometimes hear these releases referred to by their nicknames, usually involving alliteration, an adjective, and an animal. I’ve put the nicknames in parentheses.

Please keep in mind that LTSes (Long Term Support releases) are not necessarily stabler than other releases. LTS simply means they gets three years of security updates instead of just eighteen months. I would always recommend the newest release to users who are doing a clean install (as opposed to an upgrade) of Ubuntu. If you’re concerned about stability, you may want to wait a little over a month after the release date for the major bugs to be fixed.

Releases come out around every six months with the latest (for that time) software available and usually some extra features and possibly some new artwork (splash screens/wallpaper).
Desktop CD, Alternate CD, or Server CD?
The default option for type of CD is the Desktop CD. It is a live CD that is also an installation CD. A live CD allows you (provided you have enough memory—I’d recommend at least 256 MB) to run a fully functional Ubuntu operating system without affecting your hard drive or existing Windows or Mac installation. The live CD runs the session off the CD itself and your computer’s RAM. While running the live CD, you can also install Ubuntu to your hard drive (yes, you can browse the web and type up documents while installing Ubuntu)—for the combination of live session and installation, I’d recommend at least 384 MB of RAM. Warning: the Desktop CD cannot be used for upgrading existing Ubuntu installations. It will do only a clean (re)installation of Ubuntu.

If you have a special situation, you may want to use the Alternate CD instead of the Desktop CD. The Alternate CD allows you to install Ubuntu without also running a live session. This is ideal for people with less RAM (128 to 256 MB of RAM). It also allows you to do OEM installations and the installation of only a command-line system. The Alternate CD can also be used for upgrades from older versions to newer versions of Ubuntu—particularly handy for those who have a slower (or no) internet connection, since most upgrades happen with direct downloads from the Ubuntu software repositories instead of from a CD.

The Server CD provides you all the tools you need to set up a server (including LAMP). It does not come with a GUI (graphical user interface), but you can add one later if you feel you really need one (most people recommend against using a GUI on a server). If you accidentally downloaded the Server CD and want a home desktop instead of a server, you can install a home desktop by typingsudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
sudo service gdm start

Most of us Nigerians connect to the Internet using USB broadband modems from GSM operators. Those modems only come with drivers and software for Windows and sometimes, Mac but never for Linux and by extension, our beloved Ubuntu. True to the Open Source culture, Network Manager has native support for most USB modems and even the correct configuration most of the time, nullifying the need for specific drivers.

So now, you can get online on Ubuntu using your USB modem. However, something that has been plaguing a lot of Ubuntu users is the ability to monitor their data usage, especially those on limited bandwidth.

For many moons ever since i started using Linux i have always wanted an easy way to share my internet connections between two computers. anyway i finally found a way to get it to work. Now i can share internet connection between my work laptop and my personally laptop.

Please while it might be possible on some other laptops. my laptop came with the PRO/Wireless 3945ABG and its impossible to share my internet over wireless because the current driver for my device doesnt support master mode which is what is needed for this to be possible. But with this guide it would be possible to share intenet via Lan. so if you get your intenet connection over wlan or a 3g modem or anything modem. it would be possible to share that same internet over Lan. Note if you got your wifi to work through ndiswrapper then we are also in the same shoes and sharing via wifi wont work. Infact this post is not about sharing your internet via wifi period.

Ok enough talk. To get started we would need tool packages. Firestarter and dhcp both can be installed with this command

sudo apt-get install firestarter dhcp3-server

Next we need to configure the internal Network Card that other computers get their internet from. In my case since the shaing computer gets internet from Wifi my internal network card (i.e the card other computers would be getting their internet from) would be eth0. we need to configure the card and assign a static IP address in a range that you will use for your internal network card. so rightclick on the Network manager applet and select edit

click the wired tab and select Auto eth0 (or the card of the particular card you want to coonfigure as the sharing interface) and click edit.

now select IPv4 Settings and choose Manual. now Add

and set it up to your preference. for example i set like this IP address to 192.168.0.1, and the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0. Leave the gateway empty.

Now we need to fix a problem where firestarter cannot locate the DHCP daemon script

so we open a terminal and run this command

sudo ln -sf /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server /etc/init.d/dhcpd

Next we configure the interface that DCHP will be listening to.

To do this we need to edit this file /etc/default/dhcp3-server

gksu gedit /etc/default/dhcp3-server

only variable in there by default is “INTERFACES”, which will have a null value. Set it to your internal network interface. For example:

A wizard should appear Select your Detected Device (Internet-connected) if your sharing computer gets its Internet via wifi then your external device would mostly be wlan0. if you are connected via a modem then it would be ppp0 device when it asks, and make sure to specify whether or not the address is obtained via DHCP. Click the “Forward” button, check the “Enable Internet connection sharing” box, select your internal network card,”Start firewall now” box, Then click on Preference and and Network settings.

“Enable DHCP for local network”. Drop down the “DHCP server details” and enter the range of IPs you would like for it to dynamically assign. Make sure they are in the same range as the static IP you set for your internal network card. You can leave the DNS field as “” Click “Forward”, check the “Start firewall now” box, and click “Save”.

“Enable DHCP for local network”. Drop down the “DHCP server details” and enter the range of IPs you would like for it to dynamically assign. Make sure they are in the same range as the static IP you set for your internal network card. You can leave the DNS field as “” Click “Forward”, check the “Start firewall now” box, and click “Save”.

At this stage am able to ping the from the other computer but am unable to access the internet. to fix this we need to add “net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1” to /etc/sysctl.conf

to /etc/sysctl.conf

sogksu gedit /etc/sysctl.conf

and add this at the bottom

net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1
save and close.

now if all goes well you will be able to share your Internet to another laptop or computer. hope this helps some body

Multimedia

Ubuntu is very rich when it comes to playing multimedia formats like Videos ,Music ,Photo Editing,Video Editing etc .The default Music player for Ubuntu is Rhythmbox Music player for playing Videos the default is Movie Player .. But You would find some other cool Multimedia programs like Banshee,Amarok,VLC etc.

Multimedia Codecs

But before i start introducing some of the cool multimedia tools available for the Ubuntu Linux Desktop lets start by first installing important codecs that would make it possible to play many of the popular Multimedia formats on our Linux box. ( Ubuntu Ships with only free and open source software. hence some popular formats like mp3,avi,mp4 wont work out of the box. because their are not free and open source format. but you are allowed to always install the codecs to play these extra formats.)

In other to make the process easy and because we would be installing a large number of packages its better to use the commandline. dont worry all you have to do is open terminal (Application/Accessories,Terminal) and copy and paste the commands enter and wait till you are returned to your prompt.

First we enable the Medibuntu Repositories because its contains some important codecs which we would need to play DVDs

Now we have all the Codecs we would need to play most popular medias on Your Ubuntu.

Let me give you a brife introduction to some of the cool Multimedia Tools available on the Linux Desktop

Music Player.

They are like a bigilion of Music players for linux all have their plus and minuses. By default Ubuntu comes with Rhythmbox which is a very simple and stable music player.There is also Amarok which is the must feature filled music player in the world but its not known for its stability. Personally i prefer Banshee so that is what i will talk about

– Banshee

Banshee has been under the shadow of amarok and Rhythmbox for a long time. not anymore. ever since the project went 1.x its been redesigned and in my opinion the best music player there is now for linux. here are some of its features.

* Video Support Video
All the power of Banshee, now for your videos

* Device Support Device Support
Sync your music and videos to your G1, iPod, or other device

* Podcast Support Podcast Support
Download or stream podcasts and video podcasts

* Last.fm Streaming Radio Last.fm Streaming Radio
Listen to favorites and discover new music with free, streaming music from Last.fm

* Play Queue Play QueueNew!
Queue up songs, videos, and podcasts on the fly

There are also quite a handful of Video players available for linux. by default ubuntu ships with Totem. which is cool and gets the job done. but i prefer VLC which is a no nonsense video player that just about plays any file i throw at it.

I don’t do much audio editing. just the basic editing to allow me get by. fortunately most average Desktop users are like me. There are quite a large number of tools that can me used for audio editing on Ubuntu here are some popular ones.

– Audacity

Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:

I think the name of this app is self explanatory 🙂 its an utility to split mp3 and ogg files selecting a begin and an end time position, without decoding. It’s very useful to split large mp3/ogg to make smaller files or to split entire albums to obtain original tracks

Video Encoders
Unfortunately this is an area that is still young in Linux. Although there some cools tools that can be used for video editing like Kino,Avidemux,Pitivi,Kdenlive (all in the repositories and can be installed from synaptic) however must are basic tools for simple video editing.

– Kdenlive

Project is quite cool but its crashes a lot (at least from my experience) although there is a new release in the horizon that looks quite promising however as at the time of writing this there is yet to be an Ubuntu package. the older out dated version is in the Ubuntu repository but there are binaries for other versions of Linux can be downloaded here http://www.kdenlive.org/user-manual/downloading-and-installing-packages . and can be installed from synaptic (although i do not recommend it because of its frequent crashes)

– The kdenlive 0.7
Video Editors Unfortunately this is an area that is still young in Linux. Although there some cools tools that can be used for video editing like Kino,Avidemux,Pitivi,Kdenlive (all in the repositories and can be installed from synaptic) however must are basic tools for simple video editing. Kdenlive Project is quite cool but its crashes a lot (at least from my experience) although there is a new release in the horizon that looks quite promising however as at the time of writing this there is yet to be an Ubuntu package. the older out dated version is in the Ubuntu repository but there are binaries for other versions of Linux can be downloaded here http://www.kdenlive.org/user-manual/downloading-and-installing-packages . and can be installed from synaptic (although i do not recommend it because of its frequent crashes)

The Latest kdenlive 0.7

Video Encoding

Once in a while we are always faced with the need to encode video from from format to another. maybe for our ipods or mobile phone . Linux has quite a handful of tools that can be used for video encoding.There is Avidemux which is in the repository and can be installed from synaptic. Cool tool that can be used for everyday audio encoding is WinFF

– WinFF

WinFF is a GUI for the command line video converter, FFMPEG (FFmpeg is a powerful Free and Open source program that can record, convert and stream digital audio and video in numerous formats. It is commandline based). It will convert most any video file that FFmpeg will convert. WinFF does multiple files in multiple formats at one time. You can for example convert mpeg’s, flv’s, and mov’s, all into avi’s all at once. WinFF is available for Windows 95, 98 , ME, NT, XP, VISTA, and Debian, Ubuntu, Redhat based GNU/Linux distributions. WinFF is available in Brazillian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese Traditional, Danish, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish.

Installation

Ubuntu

you need to add a third party repository to your sources.list.
First we had a verification key. open terminal and copy and paste this

They are quite a handful of tools that can be used for Ripping dvds videos from the Disk to your computer. however there are two tools that i find very easy to use and very stable to use. one is more of a DVD backup utility the other is a tool for converters DVD videos to other format.

– K9Copy

K9Copy is a program that allows you to copy DVDs in Linux. It is similar to DVDShrink, and has the following features:

* The video stream is compressed to make the video fit on a 4.7GB recordable DVD
* DVD Burning
* Creation of ISO images
* Choosing which audio and subtitle tracks are copied.
* Title preview (video only)
* The ability to preserve the original menus.

Installation
A deb package can be downloaded from here
Download the Ubuntu package. Double click to install

DVD Authoring

Devede

there are quite a number of tools that can me used to make dvd/vcd videos for home use. out of the lots the best in my opinion is devede. its very easy to use and intuitive. DeVeDe project creates video DVDs, suitables for home players.
DeVeDe can create video DVDs from any number of video files, in any of the formats supported by Mplayer.

The big advantage over other utilites is that it only needs Mplayer, Mencoder, DVDAuthor y MKisofs, so its dependencies are really small.

Devede

Installation

The latest Version of Devede (At blogtime) is available in the in the Intrepid repository so if you are in Ibex just do
sudo apt-get install devede

I was giving a new laptop at work some weeks back so i decided to try another Linux distro on it .i use Ubuntu hardy heron on my home computer so i wanted something different on the work computer. my choice wasn’t too difficult because i have been hearing a lot of cool things about some Mint Linux which was suppose to be based on Ubuntu but comes preinstalled with a lot of things i user would have to install by hand on Ubuntu . so i stayed at office late into the night . went to http://www.linuxmint.com. downloaded it and installed it on my work laptop. It was to be the best decision i have ever made since switching to Linux . Some have called it Ubuntu made right. and its not had to see why,must of the things that i have personally wanted to have on Ubuntu out of the box came out of the box with MInt. Multimedia Codecs,Thunderbird mail clients,and a cool mint menu which some legend says vista ripped off Mint . other cool things about mint is its simplicity for example i love the fact that you could uninstall a program just by right clicking it on the menu and choose uninstall . ndiswrapper is installed by default for those whose wireless card depend on it to work . that is one less thing to worry about.

Overall Mint is still very much like Ubuntu its 100% compatible with any application that works with Ubuntu and because mint is based on Ubuntu .every mint release is based on the most recent Ubuntu release . the latest version is Elyssa which is based on Ubuntu Hardy Heron . and yes it uses Ubuntu repository in combination with Mint’s own repository . i personally would recommend Mints to new users who wants to try Linux for the first time. it would be a pleasant experience

This is is an attempt to bring some of the basics of Ubuntu desktop to a user completely new to Ubuntu Linux. I ‘ll try to introduce some of the basic software which you might need in other to have a an enjoyable Desktop experience with Ubuntu.

Please note: Every thing in this guide was done using the 32bit version of Ubuntu, not the 64bit version. Most of the things in this guide should work on the 64bit version, but I can’t guarantee it. (it doesn’t really matter if you don’t know what this means)

Also I have a limited experience with some set of hardware drivers like some versions of ATI and Nvidia cards, Broadcom and Antheros Wlan card and lots of other hardware. my knowledge has been limited somewhat to what I have been exposed to since using Ubuntu. but I will try to give a general Guide that would also help those using other version of Ubuntu like Kubuntu which uses the

KDE Desktop, and Xubuntu which uses the Xfce Desktop environment.etc.
The System I will be using for my guide is a Sony Vaio FZ 21e. and I would be using the Gnome Desktop which is what comes by default with Ubuntu.

You will almost certainly need to have a good Internet connection so that you can download those extra packages ( software – drivers ) that are needed to have an awesome experience with Ubuntu. If You don’t have an Internet connection. Don’t feel bad I have made a DVD which contains some Basic packages you might want like Multimedia codecs (you need these for watching movies and listening to music),some cool open source Applications for Video and Audio Editing, some packages you might want to install to your system Plus some Vital Kernel updates. The DVD is currently available in Lagos but we Hope to Distribute it to some our members in other part of Nigeria (we currently have members in Lagos, Ogun State, Enugu Ibadan, Abuja and Makrudi.

If you would like a copy of the DVD please call me at 08022982697 or you can send me an email .. bigbrovar@gmail.com

Things You Should Know About in Ubuntu.

Synaptic package manager

Synaptic package manager is an advanced package management application that can install and remove every package available to your system. The interface is graphical like Add/Remove tool on windows, but it presents much more information and gives you complete control over the software on your computer.
To launch Synaptic, to go System ▸ Administration ▸ Synaptic Package Manager.
You need administrative access to use Synaptic – which generally means that you will need to type in your password. (The one you set when you installed. Ubuntu.)

*** Most Applications in Linux are referred to as Packages ***

To Install a package in Ubuntu all you have to do is click on it, and click mark for installation. That is easy enough, but what if you don’t know the name of the package you want to install? Well, synaptic has a search feature as well, all you have to do is click on search, (or press ctrl+f) and enter the package name or a short search term. You can also search for packages by description (for example, you can find all packages mentioning “Music” or “Video Codecs”).

Use the categories on the left to filter the list of packages. To return to the list of categories after doing a search, click Sections.

To install a package, click the box next to it and choose Mark for installation. If you change your mind, choose Unmark.

To remove a package that is already installed, choose Mark for Removal.

When you have finished, click Apply and Ubuntu will download and install any packages you marked for installation, and remove any you marked for removal. If you have changed your mind, and you don’t want to make any changes, close the window instead.

However Synaptic is more than a tool for installing or removing applications.

Synaptic Package Manager can do all of the following things:

– Install, remove, configure, upgrade and downgrade single and multiple packages.
– Upgrade your whole system. (Upgrade to a new version of Ubuntu, this is like going from XP to Vista, except that new versions are better than the old ones 🙂 )
– Manage package repositories.
– Search packages by name, description and several other attributes.
– Select packages by status, section, name or a custom filter.
– Sort packages by name, status, size or version.

What Else you should know about Synaptic.

Synaptic download packages (software) from so called repositories or repo for short . a repo is like the Link to an on-line Packages Database or CD/DVD where a package can be downloaded. for example if windows worked like Linux then you would be able to add a link from adobe into your add and remove tool in windows so that when you open it and refresh you would see all adobe applications in your add and remove tool and you can easily install any of them by just right clicking and installing . wouldn’t it be cool if windows came with a tool like that. well it doesn’t – that in a way is how synaptic works on Ubuntu. there is what is called a source list which contains links to where all the packages for Ubuntu can be downloaded .. you can add more source lists to Ubuntu and a source.list can be a CD/DVD or a web-link… the important thing to know is that synaptic downloads packages from repositories using the link provided in the source lists.

When you first install Your system the First thing you do is go to synaptic click reload which would then allow it to refresh and sort of sync with the all the repositories in the source list for updates.. Where there is an update you should see a notification icon on your panel. click on it and all the updates would be displayed

Terminal

The terminal is just like the command prompt in windows, only that this one is much more powerful.

Linux is basically a command based Operating System , But a GUI (graphical user interface) was written to make.It is quite possible to use Ubuntu without ever resulting to command .. I can say that almost every terminal command has a GUI equivalent. However should any one like me want to use the command line then that is what the terminal is for .. its an emulator for the real Command line which the GUI is sitting on. note : although almost every command based application as a GUI equivalent.. the real power of Linux can better be can be seen through the command line,hence in some instances I prefer to use the terminal especially when trouble shooting a problem or trying to fix one. The Terminal can be found in Applications/Accessories/Terminal.

Multimedia
Ubuntu is very rich when it comes to playing multimedia formats like Videos ,Music ,Photo Editing,Video Editing etc .The default Music player for Ubuntu is Rhythmbox Music player for playing Videos the default is Movie Player .. But You would find some other cool Multimedia programs like Banshee,Amarok,VLC etc.

You can get them by either opening a terminal and typing

sudo apt-get install banshee

to get banshee.

sudo apt-get install amarok

to get amarok

sudo apt-get install vlc

to get vlc

(you could open synaptic package manager, and then manually search for these packages, click them, click apply, and wait for it to install the programs, but this is much faster, and that is why some people use the terminal)

Pidgin
Pidgin is a very simple Messenger Client for Linux . supports , yahoo Messenger ,MSN,Google Talk,IRC, AIM, MySpaceIM and a host of others. Its Support multiple accounts being logged in at once and has a wide range of plug-ins Pidgin can be found Under Applications/Internet/Pidgin

OpenOffice.org
Openoffice is a comprehensive suite that provides a near drop-in replacement for Microsoft(R) Office. it comes with

It support Microsoft Office formats (.doc .ppt etc) and has the ability to save Documents in these formats, as well as saving as PDF’s.

Openoffice.org can be found in Applications/Office/

Brasero
Brasero is a CD/DVD burning Utility for gnome it very easy to use and with it you can
* Burn, Copy and Erase CD/DVD
* On-the-fly burning of CD/DVD
* Append data to multisession CD/DVD
* Burn Audio CD
* CD-Text writing for Audio CD

Brasero can be found in Application/Sound & Video/Brasero

Getting Started With Ubuntu

Now i can assume that you are now familiar with some of the cool tools that comes pre-installed with Ubuntu out of the box. Ubuntu only ships with Free software

***free here don’t mean price.. it means the application is open source and does not restrict the end user in any way**

However, you might need some non-free or closed source software in order to have an awesome desktop experience on Ubuntu. Some of this packages include Multimedia codecs (mp3,avi,mp4 etc) drivers (Nvidia,ATI) Runtime (java) hence we are going to get about installing this extra packages on Ubuntu

Multimedia

Out of the box Ubuntu can play free media codecs like ogg, oggtheora, etc. for you to get it to play mp3,wmv,avi and other non-free media you have to install extra codec.To make our Job easy we would have to do some of the installations through terminal.. yeah! i know we can always use synaptic. but over time i have come to realize that some installation are easier when done from the command-line especially when installation of multiples packages are involved… don’t worry all you have to do is copy and paste the command into terminal and hit enter .. yeah its that easy

*** Most Gui tool in Linux is actually a front end to a Command-line version .. hence Synaptic is a front-end for a tool called apt-get which is used for installing packages .. to install using apt-get all you have to do is type sudo apt-get install package name (-package name should be replaced with the name of the package u want to install).. To uninstall its sudo apt-get remove package name u can learn more about installing packages on Ubuntu http://monkeyblog.org/ubuntu/installing/ ***

Lets get to work )

open Terminal and run this

sudo apt-get update

this would check for updates on your system when you are done you will be returned to your prompt

reload .. when you are done open synaptic and search for libdvdcss2 and w32codec, Check the box next to the software.
# Click the “Apply” button.
# It will show you a list of the software packages that it will install. Click OK.

Nvidia and ATI Driver

Ubuntu ships with the open source driver for ATI and Nvidia however they don’t have support for 3d acceleration .. to get this you have to install the closed source driver provided by both and Nvidia and ATI respectively

Navigate to:

System –> Administration –> Hardware Drivers

and there you’ll see your Graphics Card and an option for installation of its drivers.

Choose it and the press “Apply”. It shall install the driver – a reboot may be required.

(Applicable for both ATI/AMD and Nvidia)

You will need to do this if you have an NVIDA, ATI or many other brands of graphics card, This will then give you 3D acceleration, enabeling you to use your hardware to its full potential for things like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTOSDkRV_AM

Lots of things depend on you having some Java stuff, so in order to use those things, you will need to

Open Terminal and run this

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts
* During the installation you would be asked to agree to the java end user agreement .

alternatively you can open Add and remove Under Applications/Add and Remove .. Set it to all Available applications .. then type Java on the search field amongst the search results you would see Sun Java 6 Runtime and Sun Java 6.0 Plugin check both and and apply changes

*** The add and Remove is a package Manager Just like synaptic.. although its much more user friendly making it easy to search for and install packages.. but it is less powerful and can not be used to replace synaptic as a package manager.***

-Now Let me take you through some of the cool software available on Ubuntu Which you might want to install on your system-

P2P

If you are quite a lot of Peer2peer programs that are available on Ubuntu here are just a few of them

– Deluge

Deluge is a full-featured BitTorrent client for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Deluge features a rich plugin collection; in fact, most of Deluge’s functionality is available in the form of plugins.
Deluge was created with the intention of being lightweight and unobtrusive. Deluge is not designed for any one desktop environment and will work just fine in GNOME, KDE, XFCE and others.Deluge is Free Software and is licensed under the GNU General Public License. Deluge has a wide-array of features, including:

Deluge is in the Ubuntu repository (meaning you can install it through synaptic or add and remove) although the one there is old you can get the latest version here http://deluge-torrent.org/downloads.php

KTorrent

KTorrent is a BitTorrent program for KDE. Its features include speed capping (both down and up), integrated searching, UDP tracker support, preview of certain file types (video and audio) and integration into the KDE Panel enabling background downloading.although it meant for the KDE Desktop Environments . It works quite well under the gnome Desktop. and its quite fast. its actually my favorite P2P due to its speed and stability.

Frostwire

If you ever used a program on windows called limewire .. well this is the open source version of limewire.. whats more .. its faster and more stable than the limewire ..some of its features include:
BitTorrent Support

Turbo-Charged Download Speeds

Absolutely NO Spyware or Adware

Connects to more sources

Creative Commons license support

Max. speed network connections

Junk Result Filters

Community Chat Rooms

Firewall-to-firewall transfers

Proxy Support

I hope this guide was useful to you, and that you have a great time with UBUNTU

(this guide is a work in progress, and was edited by Harry Allington http://mynameistux.blogspot.com/ He is known as barbedsaber on the ubuntu forums, and is known as mynameistux everywhere else on the internet)

This Tutorial is for People who wants to install Ubuntu with XP already installed on your system.

What you Need

Ubuntu Live CD

Preparation.

Make sure that you defragment your drive like say twice before you emback on this tutor guide to avoid issues when Ubuntu find it unable to partition your drive.

Start

Insert the Ubuntu CD in your drive and properly shut down your system.

Make your system boot from the CD.most systems do this by default if your system does not do this .Go to into your BIOS. From there go to “Boot” and go to “Boot Priorities”. Make sure CD-ROM is set to boot first and you’re all set. When you rsystem boots from the Ubuntu CD you will see this screen. select “Start or install Ubuntu”.

The installation would go back and forth but be patient.when the Live CD finally loads.double Click on the install Icon on the Screen.

Choose Your Language and click forward

Choose your location and Time zone and click forward

Choose your preferred keyboard layout and click foward

Now when you click forward you Ubuntu loads the disk partitioner. The partitioner seeks to resize the main partition and use the freed space, is pretty much easy to go with.And this is how it works. The partitioning would be done with the help of a slider,so if you have say 40GB harddrive sive on your system and out of the 40GB – say 10GB to Ubuntu just move the slider to the right till you see it read 30GB then can leave it at that 30GB and click forward.

Another option would be to manually edit your partition tables but that is not recommended unless you are an advance user.
*Just remember to give it at least 2 GB though I recommend you give it much more.

Next you will be asked if you want to import any accounts you may have on Windows XP. If you want to do it, if not just proceed.But i will advise you not to.What ever you choose Click forward

Next Your user name and password *make sure CAPs are off

confirm all the information

Now double click install and wait for Ubuntu to install..when you are done .You can restart and remove the ubuntu CD.